3 ms·

Something like this would make it pretty easy to spot one of those stingray devices, I bet. Cell towers tend to stay put, so mapping out an area would go quick

by heelix 5y ago

Something like this would make it pretty easy to spot one of those stingray devices, I bet. Cell towers tend to stay put, so mapping out an area would go quick. Were a new 'tower' show up in an odd spot -- there may be shenanigans at hand.

the8472 5y ago
the GPS location is reported by the tower, so nothing is stopping a mitm device from spoofing that too
- iudqnolq 5y ago
  Edit: totally wrong. Thanks ectopod8! I'm pretty sure gps location is derived from signals from GPS satellites and ground stations. You can see this if you're somewhere with no cell signal but have gps, or visa versa.
  - ectopod 5y ago
    The GP is talking about the tower location, not your own location.
- efraim 5y ago
  The location is taken from an online database based on cell id. It's not clear where most of them get their data but services like wigle and mozilla use crowd sourcing of signal strengths so they might be a bit off. Not as accurate as the ones in the article I would think.
- yuubi 5y ago
  In cdma2000, it's an option. I didn't notice such a thing in LTE. (LTE does include some options to determine position by propagation delay between mobile and base station, but they all involve the mobile reporting time measurements to the network, and then the network has the info to compute location).
oasisbob 5y ago
That type of exception analysis is exactly how University of Washington researchers do their stingray hunting. It doesn't take much time monitoring to figure out which towers smell funny: https://seaglass.cs.washington.edu/ https://seaglass.cs.washington.edu/
- BCM43 5y ago
  Crocodile Hunter as well. https://github.com/EFForg/crocodilehunter https://github.com/EFForg/crocodilehunter
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "Were a new 'tower' show up in an odd spot -- there may be shenanigans at hand." Or maybe it's simply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_cell_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_cell_sites
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Those will only really show up around large events or during disasters. There's little reason to just put one out there unless there's an event calling for the extra demand or a quick patch of the network coverage.
dest 5y ago
https://opencellid.org/ https://opencellid.org/ and https://f-droid.org/fr/packages/info.zamojski.soft.towercollector/ https://f-droid.org/fr/packages/info.zamojski.soft.towercoll...

by heelix 5y ago

the8472 5y ago

the GPS location is reported by the tower, so nothing is stopping a mitm device from spoofing that too

iudqnolq 5y ago
Edit: totally wrong. Thanks ectopod8! I'm pretty sure gps location is derived from signals from GPS satellites and ground stations. You can see this if you're somewhere with no cell signal but have gps, or visa versa.
- ectopod 5y ago
  The GP is talking about the tower location, not your own location.
efraim 5y ago
The location is taken from an online database based on cell id. It's not clear where most of them get their data but services like wigle and mozilla use crowd sourcing of signal strengths so they might be a bit off. Not as accurate as the ones in the article I would think.
yuubi 5y ago
In cdma2000, it's an option. I didn't notice such a thing in LTE. (LTE does include some options to determine position by propagation delay between mobile and base station, but they all involve the mobile reporting time measurements to the network, and then the network has the info to compute location).

oasisbob 5y ago

That type of exception analysis is exactly how University of Washington researchers do their stingray hunting. It doesn't take much time monitoring to figure out which towers smell funny: https://seaglass.cs.washington.edu/ https://seaglass.cs.washington.edu/

BCM43 5y ago
Crocodile Hunter as well. https://github.com/EFForg/crocodilehunter https://github.com/EFForg/crocodilehunter

ThrowawayR2 5y ago

> "Were a new 'tower' show up in an odd spot -- there may be shenanigans at hand." Or maybe it's simply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_cell_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_cell_sites

rtkwe 5y ago
Those will only really show up around large events or during disasters. There's little reason to just put one out there unless there's an event calling for the extra demand or a quick patch of the network coverage.

dest 5y ago

https://opencellid.org/ https://opencellid.org/ and https://f-droid.org/fr/packages/info.zamojski.soft.towercollector/ https://f-droid.org/fr/packages/info.zamojski.soft.towercoll...